THE NEW YORKER a deeper aesthetic grasp and a maturing delight in the gnarled surfaces of the human face. T HIS seems a good place for some more retrospective criticism. Mi- ron Sokole's oils at the Midtown Gal- leries followed the show of gouaches he had at the same place last year, and they demonstrate a real advance. These landscapes are of American villages, for the most part, but the emphasis is upon the scene rather than upon the American, and the drama and action of the picture are embodied not in people but in the swerve of a hill or the burst of a white building, appearing like a headlight on a dark road. Sokole has not the same grasp of the human figure that he has of the component parts of the landscape; that part of his equip- ment probably needs evening out. If anything should spur him to this, it would perhaps be a contemplation of the work of Maurice UtrIllo, whose pain tings of the so-called "white peri- od" are now on at Bignou's. In the treatment of wall and sky, the crum- bliness of stucco and the infiltration of light through a Paris street, U trillo cannot be surpassed. But his streets are usually empty, as if it were al- ways Sunday, and when a human fig- ure appears in the landscape, it is an inadequate smudge that is entirely out of key with the way in which the rest of the painting is handled. Still, three or four of these can vases are among his best, and that is very fine indeed. Please note the fresh and vigorous water colors by David Fredenthal, momentarily at the Downtown Gal- lery. Fredenthal's landscapes are some- times a little too murky to be de- cipherable, murky without apparently any deep reason in subject or mood. He is, however, a lively draughtsman, and in the spacious water colors of human heads, and studies for frescoes, shows a fine sense of plastic values. I must say a word, too, about the almost hieratic paintings of Tschacbasov, re- cently at the A.C.A. Gallery. Tschac- basov is a Georgian by birth, and his best paintings have a stiff, Byzantine quality per haps native to that part of the world: figures whose monotonous repetition enters into their deliberate symbolism-as in the choirboys and the ] ustices of the Supreme Court. I have not looked at this work often enough to be sure how well it would wear, but I suspect there may be a genuine talent here, although perhaps unevenly ma- tured. -LEWIS MUMFORD 31 TWO MIDTOWN OFFICES < . < . , ..,... ':03n;:':::*:':';;"/ ;;;; ;:;::;:;i:j: :t :;þ; :tEf;:::: jP::':;9i ':-', fl 1 If\::::,::Jt . .. ...... :0::::::: .. ........ :r::::::::::';; :f,:\.\::i 4!'; ::::::;;:' i;?:: :j':::Í:{::=:: ,: : ,,:::. ,..., ' ::.: ,::Æ :. 'i :;:'%. .:.:-..:.;.. :::::-:: '. .. ...."". . ..... _:: : : :::}:::.. _0' ".: '000' '.s .&i ; FIFTH AVENUE AT 44TH STREET .ii':' :"'t ;:';Ai. ;'t.,,; ';,,;:<\:s:..; <>, ./ '^ i .' (f f ,.t; ,t. J:.::J::;e:,. ;;: ,::::::::i: I ':::: :::. "": ".:." :i::,' :g ',: ::--:::::: Y' .. ;'z t:, ...: - ;':::?:: w. W. it:::f p 81 : ::I :::s * . , .::: :::, it , : ; , :: , :: , .. . t:. , ; : ,/:::1-::,:'...: ' . ) ... : : . .... ..' .. ..: : :' :: :::/h<::.::. .: :' . '::;,:::f :\ }:r:'i! .:: :;::.::.:' .... : ' :':'. -.:-::'.; . . '..;: ::": ::: :::N. /, ' :':;":' 1 ' :::: ,,<:...:-:. .:..., :::' .:.:.....:::-:: t,::..:: : :::."; : .... ':.' : '{". : :-";""-:: :::,"::".. ,:,,!L , ':,;;::r/r" .. :<<:-: :: : .:...;::. ::: " \. . :Wf':::" : ",?:li:X%Z 7Þ ''' 8i::U'fu, þY0@it; f :}\<: ? :. . 57TH STREET AT MADISON AVE. BANKERS TRUST COMPANY 16 WALL STREET, NEW YORK FIFTH AVE. AT 44TH ST. · 57TH ST. AT MADISON AVE. · LONDON: 26 OLD BROAD ST. Memher of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation